DOCSLIB.ORG

This Paper Examines the Construction of Opinion Pages in a Catalan

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
This Paper Examines the Construction of Opinion Pages in a Catalan Pragmatics 25:4.589-615 (2015) International Pragmatics Association DOI: 10.1075/prag.25.4.06fre STANDARDIZING OPINION: PROJECTING A NATIONAL CATALAN PUBLIC THROUGH LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Susan E. Frekko Abstract The grounds of authority for the Catalan language have shifted from authenticity to anonymity, as Catalan becomes redefined as a public language. The “model of language” of the Catalan press reflects this shift, with an emphasis on neutral, transparent Catalan. This article examines original and published letters to the editor in a Catalan-medium newspaper in Barcelona. I argue that standardization of language, page design and signatures in the letters to the editor erases the social indexicality that attaches the original letters to their socially positioned authors. This process of standardization in linguistic and other semiotic modes allows the published letters to index a unified Catalan national “public” rather than their distinct authors. Keywords: Language ideologies; Print; Registers; Publics. 1. Introduction Scholars of publics write of the projection of national identities through the shared consumption of mass media (Anderson 1991; Habermas 1989; Warner 1990, 2002). The homogenization and untraceability of mass-mediated speech makes it appear to emanate from no particular social position and therefore to represent a linguistically and socially homogeneous “public.” Yet, we know that mass-mediated speech does not start out as homogeneous and untraceable; rather, like all speech, it originates with clearly positioned individuals. This article is about the process by which speech produced by someone comes to count as speech produced by “everyone-because-no-one-in- particular” as anthropologist Susan Gal has put it (Gal 2001: 33), that is, as speech belonging to “the public.” Elsewhere, I have suggested that national publics seem linked to a recursively imagined language that at one level is seen as standard and homogeneous and at a lower level is seen as internally variable (Frekko 2009). In Catalonia, local language ideology describes Catalonia as not quite successful (or “normal”) as a national public, because the erasure of linguistic registers happens at both levels, such that Catalan appears to exist exclusively as a standard language and therefore not flexible enough for use by all people in all situations. Comparing Catalonia’s imagined failure to be a full-fledged 590 Susan E. Frekko national public with the imagined success of other national publics can help researchers articulate exactly what a national public is and how one is created. In the current article, I examine a process that permits the erasure of linguistic variability at both recursive levels. When this occurs at the level of contrasting named languages, it fosters the imagination of a national public. When it occurs within a language, it undermines the imagination of a national public, because the language seems unable to account for the full range of people belonging to the projected national public. Michael Silverstein has critiqued Benedict Anderson’s naturalization of named, standardized languages and his assumption that these led naturally to the creation of supposedly homogenous, bounded and uncontested social orders, a.k.a. “nations” (see also Blommaert and Verschueren 1998 on "homogeneism"). In actuality, “Linguistic practice (and symbolic practice more generally) under standardization is an essentially contested order of sociocultural reality” (Silverstein 2000: 124). Therefore, rather than projecting “we-ness” directly from standard languages, as Anderson does, scholars must instead explain how shared national identity emerges in spite of the contestation and heterogeneity inherent in regimes of standardization. One of the goals of this article is to use the Catalan case to propose some ideas about the mechanics of this process. I examine opinion pages in two Catalan-medium newspapers in Barcelona. The corpus that I address here offers a snapshot of nine days in late 2002 and 2003, and in particular 31 original, unedited letters to the editor that the newspapers provided to me. Zeroing in on a few days’ publication allows me to perform a fine-grained analysis that complements the ethnographic and interview data that I collected in Barcelona during my 2002-2003 fieldwork and five shorter follow-up trips between 2004 and 2011. I argue that standardization of language, page design and signatures in the letters to the editor erase the social indexicality that attaches the original letters to their socially positioned authors. This process of standardization in linguistic and other semiotic modes allows the published letters to index a unified, homogeneous “public” rather than their distinct authors and the social variability that they represent. Print capitalism in many places across the globe involves similar processes, and these may be a common factor linking print and national publics.1 Catalonia is a particularly useful site for studying this process because of what it does not share with other national publics—the sense that its national public is fragile or abnormal. I have argued that in hegemonic national publics, the homogenization of language at the level of contrasting named national languages coexists with the imagination of linguistic variability within the named language. Both because of register reduction in Catalan and the delegitimation of registers that draw on Castilian, Catalonia appears not to have enough linguistic variability to account for all social positions. This in turn results in the imagined fragility of its national public (Frekko 2009). The standardization processes that I outline simultaneously aid and limit the imagination of a national public. On one level, the homogenization process makes the 1 This link is of course the product of history rather than of any natural relationship between print and national publics; as Warner (1990) carefully points out, “public-ness” is not inherent to print technology. It is easy to imagine other constellations, for example, one in which print capitalism is the basis not for a monoglot national public but rather for diglossia. Still, a link between print and the projection of a homogeneous national public is common cross-culturally and therefore worthy of theorization. Standardizing opinion 591 letters appear to represent the voice of a unified “everyone.” On a lower recursive level, it erases the social complexity of Catalonia, a stratified, multilingual society in which access to standard forms of language correlate highly with age and social class. This second form of erasure ultimately serves to undermine the idea that Catalonia is a full- fledged, socially complex public. This contrasts with hegemonic world languages, for which heteroglossic forms appear more regularly in print and other media forms. This article examines a set of practices implicated in the erasure of social complexity and the projection of homogeneity: I accomplish this task through an analysis of original letters to the editor and their editing and recontextualization on the printed page. In the next sections, I discuss language ideologies in the mass media and offer some background information on the Catalan newspaper press in Barcelona. I then go on to describe my research and its findings. 2. Ideologies of standardization across semiotic modes in the mass media Catalan standard language acts as a sign of Catalan national distinctness. This sign relationship is an element of Catalan language ideology, particularly of an “ideology of standardization” (Milroy and Milroy 1999: 19). Several scholars have described the ways that people use language (and standard language in particular) to project imagined (non face-to-face) groups—publics and nations (Anderson 1991; Habermas 1989; Warner 1990, 2002). Print media, the focus of accounts by Anderson, Habermas and Warner, is often mentioned as a site for processes of and ideologies about linguistic standardization. These accounts tend to gloss over the details of linguistic standardization processes, a shortcoming that I address by examining linguistic standardization in the letters to the editor. I go on to argue that not only linguistic standardization but also other forms of standardization contribute to the projection of a national public. Anderson’s famous account of the birth and spread of nationalism pays close attention to the role of print capitalism in this process (1991). In the 18th century New World, the circulation of newspapers allowed colonists to imagine themselves as belonging to a community separate from the colonial regimes.2 Newspapers, for example, “created an imagined community among a specific assemblage of fellow- readers, to whom these ships, brides, bishops and prices belonged” (1991: 62). These sentiments culminated in the New World national independence movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These movements then ushered in an “age of nationalism” (67) in Europe that drew on American models and added to them the notion of the distinct national print language (which had not been an issue in the Americas, where colonists used the same language as their colonial regimes). This focus on language inspired a “lexicographic revolution” (72)—a burst of scholarship aimed at studying and standardizing the European vernaculars, which of course then became available as indexes of distinct national essences. The printed material resulting from this scholarship was destined for the expanding bourgeois reading
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Century Barcelona
    Immigration and Integration in a Mediterranean City: The Making of the Citizen in Fifteenth- Century Barcelona Volume 1 Carolina Obradors Suazo Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Florence, July 2015. European University Institute Department of History and Civilization Immigration and Integration in a Mediterranean City: The Making of the Citizen in Fifteenth-Century Barcelona. Volume 1 Carolina Obradors Suazo Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Examining Board Prof. Luca Molà, (EUI, Supervisor). Prof. Regina Grafe, (EUI, Second Reader). Dr. Roser Salicrú i Lluch (Institució Milà i Fontanals -CSIC, External Supervisor). Prof. Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla (EUI, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville). Prof. James Amelang (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). © Carolina Obradors Suazo, 2015. No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author Immigration and Integration in a Mediterranean City: The Making of the Citizen in Fifteenth-Century Barcelona Carolina Obradors Suazo Thesis Supervisor: Professor Luca Molà Abstract. This thesis explores the norms, practices, and experiences that conditioned urban belonging in Late Medieval Barcelona. A combination of institutional, legal, intellectual and cultural analysis, the dissertation investigates how citizenship evolved and functioned on the Barcelonese stage. To this end, the thesis is structured into two parts. Part 1 includes four chapters, within which I establish the legal and institutional background of the Barcelonese citizen. Citizenship as a fiscal and individual privilege is contextualised within the negotiations that shaped the limits and prerogatives of monarchical and municipal power from the thirteenth to the late fourteenth centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • (At the Service of the Roman Empire) and the Subsequent Economic Imperialism
    Image: Map of Western Europe, by Fernão Vaz Dourado (1520-1580). Estimated actual date: ≈1705. European colonization (at the service of the Roman Empire) and the subsequent Economic Imperialism Author: Andreu Marfull-Pujadas 2017 © All rights reserved Exercise done for the Project of the Scientific Direction "New Chronology" - НЕВ ХРОНОЛОГИЈАА - directed by the professors A.T.Fomenko and G.V.Nosovskiy Work developed in the GLOBAL DIAGRAM OF THE DOUBLE CHRONOLOGICAL MANIPULATION OF THE HUMAN HISTORY - Representation of the Global Chronological Map of the "New Chronology" (Part 3) V.3.0 2017/10/12 Posted on 2018/01/12 Index 1. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF DILATED HISTORY ................................................... 3 1.1. The Empire of Human Civilizations, 10th-21st centuries ......................................................................... 3 1.2. Egypt = Rome = Greece, the Original Empire .......................................................................................... 4 1.3. Archaeology and “ancient” Thought ......................................................................................................... 5 1.4. Jerusalem = Holy Land = Several cities ................................................................................................... 5 1.5. America before to “1492” .......................................................................................................................... 7 1.6. The transformation of the Horde-Ottoman Alliance into the Janua (Genoa)-Palaiologos Alliance .......... 8
    [Show full text]
  • First Draft Programme
    - SMM Conference - Movement and Mobility in the Medieval Mediterranean (6th – 15th Centuries) First draft programme Institut d’Estudis Catalans – Institució Milà i Fontanals Barcelona, 8th – 10th July 2019 Monday 8th Tuesday 9th Wednesday 10th Thursday 11th Friday 12th 9h30 S2 - panels 9h30 S6 - panels 9h30 S9 - panels 11h00 6-7-8-9-10 11h00 26-27-28-29-30 11h00 41-42-43-44-45 11h00 11h00 11h00 Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break 11h30 11h30 11h30 11h30 S3 - panels 11h30 S7 - panels 11h30 Simon Barton’s 13h00 11-12-13-14-15 13h00 31-32-33-34-35 13h00 Homage Programme summary 14h00 13h00 13h00 Opening session Lunchtime Lunchtime 14h30 14h30 14h30 Full day excursion to medieval 14h30 SMM’s Book and Girona, Sant Pere 14h45 Journal Prizes 14h30 S4 - panels 14h30 Keynote: Amy G. de Rodes medieval 16h00 16-17-18-19-20 16h00 Remensnyder monastery, fishing 14h45 and touristic Break 15h00 village of el Port de la Selva (from 9 15h00 Keynote: Petra 16h00 16h00 am to 9 pm) Coffee break Coffee break 16h30 M. Sijpesteijn 16h30 16h30 16h30 16h30 S5 (panels 16h30 S8 - panels Coffee break 17h00 18h00 21-22-23-24-25) 18h00 36-37-38-39-40 17h00 S1 - panels 18h00 AGM Visit to ‘Medieval 18h30 1-2-3-4-5 20h00 Barcelona’ and 19h00 18h30 Conference ‘700 years of the Reception 20h 20h00 dinner ACA’ exhibitions Monday 8th of July 14h00 – 14h30 Opening Session 14h30 – 14h45 SMM’s Book and Journal Prizes 14h45 – 15h00 Break 15h00 – 16h30 Keynote Petra M. Sijpesteijn (Leiden University): Global Networks: Mobility and Exchange in the Mediterranean (600-1000) The establishment of the Muslim Empire in the mid-seventh century C.E.
    [Show full text]
  • Memory in the Middle Ages: Approaches from Southwestern
    CMS MEMORY IN THE MIDDLE AGES APPROACHES FROM SOUTHWESTERN EUROPE Memory was vital to the functioning of the medieval world. People in medieval societies shared an identity based on commonly held memo- MEMORY IN THE MIDDLE AGES THE MIDDLE IN MEMORY ries. Religions, rulers, and even cities and nations justifi ed their exis- tence and their status through stories that guaranteed their deep and unbroken historical roots. The studies in this interdisciplinary collec- tion explore how manifestations of memory can be used by historians as a prism through which to illuminate European medieval thought and value systems.The contributors have drawn a link between memory and medieval science, management of power and remembrance of the dead ancestors through examples from southern Europe as a means and Studies CARMEN Monographs of enriching and complicating our study of the Middle Ages; this is a region with a large amount of documentation but which to date has not been widely studied. Finally, the contributors have researched the role of memory as a means to sustain identity and ideology from the past to the present. This book has two companion volumes, dealing with ideology and identity as part of a larger project that seeks to map and interrogate the signifi cance of all three concepts in the Middle Ages in the West. CARMEN Monographs and Studies seeks to explore the movements of people, ideas, religions and objects in the medieval period. It welcomes publications that deal with the migration of people and artefacts in the Middle Ages, the adoption of Christianity in northern, Baltic, and east- MEMORY IN central Europe, and early Islam and its expansion through the Umayyad caliphate.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pyrenees Region by Friedrich Edelmayer
    The Pyrenees Region by Friedrich Edelmayer The Pyrenees region encompasses areas from the Kingdom of Spain, the Republic of France and the Principality of An- dorra. It is also linguistically heterogeneous. In addition to the official state languages Spanish and French, Basque, Aragonese, Catalan and Occitan are spoken. All of these languages have co-official character in certain regions of Spain, although not in France. In the modern era, changes to the political-geographical boundary between the present states of France and Spain occurred in the 16th century, when the Kingdom of Navarre was divided into two unequal parts, and in 1659/1660 when northern Catalonia became part of France after the Treaty of the Pyrenees. However, the border area between France and Spain was not only a stage for conflict, but also a setting for numerous communi- cation and transfer processes. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Languages and Peoples in the Pyrenees 1. Basque 2. Aragonese 3. Catalan 4. Occitan 5. Spanish and French 3. The History of the Pyrenees Region 4. Transfer and Communication Processes in the Pyrenees 5. Appendix 1. Sources 2. Bibliography 3. Notes Indices Citation Introduction There are three states today in the area of Europe which is dominated by the Pyrenees Mountains: the French Repub- lic (République française), the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España) and, in the middle of the (high) mountains, the small Principality of Andorra (Principat d'Andorra). The border between France and Spain runs today mostly along the main ridge of the mountains and, with few exceptions, along the watershed between the rivers that meet the sea at the Spanish coast and those that meet the sea at the French coast.
    [Show full text]
  • Peasant Servitude in Mediaeval Catalonia
    CATALAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, 6: 33-43 (2013) Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona DOI: 10.2436/20.1000.01.84 · ISSN: 2013-407X http://revistes.iec.cat/chr/ Peasant Servitude in Mediaeval Catalonia Paul Freedman * Yale University Received 24 March 2012 · Accepted 20 May 2012 Abstract The essay looks at the late-mediaeval serfs in Catalunya Vella who were known as remences, peasants tied to the land they occupied and to their lords by the necessity to “redeem” themselves from servitude in order to obtain the freedom to move away. They also were subject to what were considered degrading payments known as mals usos (“bad customs”). The way such a condition came about, the reason it affected only part of the Principality of Catalonia and the origins of the remences’ revolt of 1462-1486 are the main topics of the article. Keywords: remença, serf, Old Catalonia, peasants, seigneurie, land tenure The Peculiar Nature of Catalan Serfdom Sentencia Arbtiral de Guadalupe) abolished the most op- pressive seigneurial impositions.2 From 1462 until 1472, and again from 1484 to 1486, the In effect, serfdom itself was ended, and in return mon- serfs of Old Catalonia (defined at the time as the territo- etary compensation was to be paid to the lords, the funds ries lying east of the Llobregat River) revolted against to be raised by local peasant collectives. In addition to the their masters. Their demands centered on what had be- redemption fine, the traditional but burdensome pay- come customary ties to their lords that rendered them ments now abolished included seigneurial demands occa- legally unfree, subordinated by more than just being sioned by the death of a peasant without a male heir (ex- peasants and paying rent to a landlord.
    [Show full text]
  • 1. Portada I Índex
    IV. Programme Monday 8th of July 14h15 – 14h30 Opening Session 14h30 – 14h45 SMM’s Book and Journal Prizes 14h45 – 15h00 Break 15h00 – 16h30 Keynote Petra M. Sijpesteijn (Leiden University): Global Networks: Mobility and Exchange in the Mediterranean (600-1000) Chair: Esther-Miriam Wagner (University of Cambridge) 16h30 – 17h00 Coffee break Session 1: 17h00 – 18h30 Panel 1: Muslims in the Mediterranean: Coexistence and Conflict Chair: Eulàlia Vernet i Pons (ICREA – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Inês Lourinho (University of Lisbon): Pilgrim in Mecca or Warrior in al-Andalus? Jihad as a Concept of Variable Geometry at the Disposal of the Almoravid Empire. Xavier Ballestín (DHUNA - Universitat de Barcelona): Unbound Seafaring, Unrestrained Freedom: the Activity of Andalusi Seafarers in the Western Mediterranean Basin between the Ninth and Tenth Centuries A.D. Luciano Gallinari (CNR – Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea): Sardinia and the Muslims (7th-11th Centuries): Reflections on Sources and Historiography of this Contrasting Relationship. Monday 8th Panel 2: People from the North Conquering the South. Catalan Knights and Peasants in Muslim Lands: Lower Ebro Valley and Balearic Islands (12th and 13th Centuries) Organiser & Chair: Núria Pacheco Catalán (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Antoni Virgili (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Nil Rider (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona): Berenguer de Fonollar: a Landlord from Baix Llobregat in the Conquest of Tortosa (1148- 1149). Núria Pacheco Catalán (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona): A War-oriented Society: Tortosa after the Christian Conquest. Antoni Ferrer Abárzuza (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona): Hundred Years after, still about Catalan Conquerors. The Case of Guillem de Montpalau (1248). Panel 3: Notarial Activity in Medieval Hospitals.
    [Show full text]
  • Programme (Long)
    Society for the Medieval Mediterranean 6th Biennial Conference In Memory of Simon Barton Movement and Mobility in the Medieval Mediterranean (6th – 15th Centuries) Programme Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) Barcelona, 8th – 11th July 2019 Committees 1 I. Movement and Mobility in the Medieval Mediterranean 3 II. Conference venue 9 III. Opening and Programme Summary 14 IV. Programme 15 V. List of participants 97 1 Coordination Dr. Roser Salicrú i Lluch (IMF-CSIC & IEC). Dr. Ivan Armenteros Martínez (IMF-CSIC). Dr. Alessandro Rizzo (IMF-CSIC). Scientific and Organising Committee Dr. Ivan Armenteros Martínez (IMF-CSIC). Victòria A. Burguera Puigserver (IMF-CSIC, Universitat de les Illes Balears). Pol Junyent Molins (IMF-CSIC). Marta Manso Rubio (IMF-CSIC, Universitat de Barcelona). Dr. Alessandro Rizzo (IMF-CSIC). Dr. Roser Salicrú i Lluch (IMF-CSIC & IEC). SMM Executive Committee Dr. Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo (University of Lincoln), Co-President and Treasurer. Dr. Jo Van Steenbergen (Universiteit Gent), Co-President. Dr. Esther-Miriam Wagner (University of Cambridge), Vice-President and Editor in Chief of Al-Masaq. Dr. Alun Williams (University of Exeter), Secretary. Dr. Jessica Tearney-Pearce (University of Cambridge), Website & Social Media Officer. Dr. Christopher Heath (Manchester Metropolitan University), Book Reviews Editor. 2 3 I. Movement and Mobility in the Medieval Mediterranean The medieval Mediterranean was not a static maritime space. In recent years, studies have focused on Mediterranean dynamics, connections, encounters and entanglements. What approaches do researches from History, Literature, Archaeology, Philology and other disciplines adopt to better understand the complexity of the medieval Mediterranean? How and to what extent did multiple agents, phenomena and factors interact to shape and intertwine the multidimensional spheres of the Mediterranean? We welcome papers from all disciplines that study movement and mobility from different perspectives in and across the medieval Mediterranean and its extensions, both physical and imagined.
    [Show full text]
  • Catalan Independence Through a Cultural Lens Maren Burling Bucknell University, [email protected]
    Bucknell University Bucknell Digital Commons Honors Theses Student Theses Spring 2019 Els Catalans Són Diferents: Catalan Independence through a Cultural Lens Maren Burling Bucknell University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses Part of the Linguistic Anthropology Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Burling, Maren, "Els Catalans Són Diferents: Catalan Independence through a Cultural Lens" (2019). Honors Theses. 506. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses/506 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses at Bucknell Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Bucknell Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Els Catalans Són Diferents: Catalan Independence through a Cultural Lens By Maren Burling A Departmental Honors Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Bucknell University For Honors in Anthropology April 1, 2019 Approved: ________________________ Dr. Michelle C. Johnson Associate Professor of Anthropology Thesis Advisor ________________________ Dr. Edmund Q. Searles Associate Professor of Anthropology Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology i Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank Professor Michelle C. Johnson from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, my advisor, my champion, and my friend. As someone I admire for her intelligence, passion, and loyalty, it has been an absolutely pleasure to be her honors thesis student this past year. MJ, you have an enthusiasm that reminds me why I love anthropology. Thank you for your guidance and encouragement, without it this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to acknowledge my Honors Council Committee, Clare Sammells, and Heidi Lorimor, for participating in this process and supporting undergraduate research and academia.
    [Show full text]
  • Fifteenth Century Comets in Non-Astronomical Catalan Manuscripts
    Journal of Catalan Studies 2016/2016 Fifteenth century comets in non-astronomical Catalan manuscripts. María José Martínez Universidat Politècnica de València Francisco J. Marco Universitat Jaume I, Castelló From the fifteenth century onwards, it was common in Western Europe to consider astrology as the best instrument to provide a link between the circumstances of life on the Earth and the disposition of the stars in the universe. The intimate relation between astronomy and astrology is reflected even in non-specialist works where the words astrònom and astròleg are used indistinctly. To this effect, the intrusion of astrology into medicine is also revealing, mainly in the countries of the Mediterranean and Western Europe, where several university chairs in both astronomy and astrology were established. The belief, above and beyond the sphere of human health, that the stars bore some influence on terrestrial events such as catastrophes, political or economic changes or wars was, in turn, prevalent. The same phenomenon is additionally evident in the vernacularization of science throughout the fifteenth century, particularly visible in translations or compilations of original works. A general outline of this issue in scientific works in Catalan in general and astronomy in particular is offered by Cifuentes (2001). The fifteenth century is a period with abundant observation of comets. Astronomy was in a pre-Copernican state and astronomers based their observations on Ptolemy’s Almagest, adding minor modifications to this general frame. According to Jervis (1985) there were no developments in cometary theory from antiquity to 1400, when quantitative observations began. These comments were recorded in notes, some of them by well-known astronomers such as Toscanelli and Regiomontanus, and astrological judgments were attributed to them.
    [Show full text]
  • Ferdinand II and the Crown of Aragon”
    CATALAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, 10: 105-108 (2017) Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona DOI: 10.2436/20.1000.01.135 · ISSN: 2013-407X http://revistes.iec.cat/chr/ Chronicle of the congress on “Ferdinand II and the Crown of Aragon” Ernest Belenguer Member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans Scientific Coordinator of the Congress At the May 2015 meeting of the History-Archaeology Section of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, the decision was taken to hold a congress on Ferdinand II in 2016 to mark the five hundredth anniversary of the death of the Catholic King, the nickname by which the monarch is known all over the world. The decision came with its own set of problems, including economic ones at a time when the country had not yet fully pulled out of the recession which had affected much of the world of the past several years, Europe and Spain included. Furthermore, many of the institutions and universities in Spain were also ex- pected to hold congresses. However, ultimately not very many celebrations of the quincentenary were held. In consequence, the congress hosted by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, which was meant to be a small gathering about the lands held by Ferdinand II – called the Crown of Aragon, which was consolidated in the 15th century – be- came a large one because of its quality and its classic yet modern structure, thanks to the new research in the pa- pers presented and the debates that accompanied the talks from the 26th to 28th of October. As I write this brief chronicle of the congress, the au- thors have already submitted all their papers in writing to the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, which will publish them.
    [Show full text]
  • The National Cost of Territorial Defense and Treason in Late Medieval Catalonia
    The National Cost of Territorial Defense and Treason in Late Medieval Catalonia Donald J. Kagay Albany State University Long before the international wars of the late Renaissance had wrought a true fault line in military affairs (which Geoffrey Parker and a burgeoning array of followers and opponents all refer to as the Military Revolution), the Hundred Years’ War constituted a stage on which many a tactical, logistical, and institutional change in the way of European war got its start.1 Though especially associated by later historians with England and France, the contenders in the set-piece battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, the conflict also had an immense effect on Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. It is on one of the latter states, Catalonia, and its unique fiscal road to the battlefield during the fourteenth century and thence to nationhood that this paper will focus. I. Medieval sovereigns, like their early modern counterparts, fully understood the old political maxim that “money constitutes the sinews of war.”2 They would also have agree with Tom Paine (no mean feat in itself) that “war has but one thing certain and that is to 1For the parameters of the debate, see Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1988); The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, ed. Clifford J. Rogers (Boulder, Colorado, 1995. For general treatment of 100 Years War, see Edouard Perroy, The Hundred Years War (New York, 1965); Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War: Trial by Battle (Philadelphia, 1990).
    [Show full text]